Dean Shirota didn't tell me the weight of the 25 inch bone fish he caught. What's amazing is the 1/0 size hook he was using for the fly. Normally, his bone fish flys like the Christmas Island Special and Crazy Charlie are tied on a #4 size hook. Now Dean says he's going to tie some bonefish flys on a 2/0 hook. Well, our Hawaii bones usually run 6 to 12 pounds. How big a hook have you used for a bone fish fly?
Aloha,
Stan
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[black][#008000]In the Bahamas where the bonefish average between 2-5 lbs they use #4 - 6 hooks. In the Florida Keys they use # 2 - 8s. 1/0 sounds kind of big. Now if you are talking about Peacock bass hooks [/#008000][/black][green][size 3]they use a # 4/0[/size][size 3].[/size][/green]
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Depends on the style of hook since a #4 in one style can be radically different size than #4 in another. (Sometimes I wish for a standard, but even within one company, e.g., Mustad, there is no consistency.) But assuming Mustad3407 or Mustad34007, then sizes 8 up through 4 seem to be standard fare in Belize where the typical bones rarely break through 10#. This covers the usual Crazy Charlies, Bonefish Bitters, Chernobyl Crabs and even Clousers.
One thing that helps in presentation is to have a variety of weights in a given size. So I like to have a section with the typical "heavy metal" eyes (tungsten preferred), metal bead chain eyes (for a medium weight version) and plastic eyes (for light weight). Sometimes I'll even have a few flies with no added weight. For example I have a small batch of Clousers at the ready tied with no eyes at all. The placement of the material across the gap of the hook rolls the hook to its expected/proper point up orientation. These unweighted Clousers work nicely on large Trout and Bass, too.
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